


Lost Causes

by Vashti (tvashti)



Series: SPS [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, August 2018 TwistedShorts Ficathon, Community: twistedshorts, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Pack Dynamics, Secret Identity, Secrets, supernatural politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 08:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16081988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: “Should you be telling me this?” Bran asked, eyebrows drifting towards his hairline.  “Probably not.  But we’ve got short people solidarity!”





	Lost Causes

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the Mercy Thompson books, and AU after Buffy episode "New Moon Rising".
> 
> Written for the 2018 August FAD for livejournal, in the midst of my annual August craziness. I’ve reviewed and edited for clarity, but it is otherwise largely unchanged. If you see something that I missed, please mention it in the comments. :D

Twenty-four hours after she had appeared on his doorstep, the pity Bran had felt for the pretty blond vampire slayer had yet to abate. 

He stood leaning on the doorframe of the rescued wolf’s room. The infirmary building was as homey as anyone could make a small hospital. At first glance the rooms didn’t look like they belonged in one, but there weren’t enough knickknacks, doilies, pale wood panels or hand-carved treasures to scrub the scent of antiseptic, fear and sickness from its rooms.

Bran was watching the pair as they slept – Anne the Slayer with her head pillowed in her arms on the side of the bed, and Oz with his unbandaged hand in her hair. The healing process would go faster if he could be coaxed back into his wolf form, but he was still too weak. Samuel and Doc Wallace had reported a marked improvement in the pup’s vitals since the slayer had appeared in his room. At least now there was hope that he could be forced to shift in a day or two. 

Bran sensed Mercy’s approach and shifted over so that she lean on other side of the doorframe.

“You’ve gotta admit,” she said, “they’re kinda cute together.” Her eyes flicked between the pair in the room and Bran.

“I never said they weren’t.”

“But you want to separate them.”

“I never said that either.”

Mercy scowled, and Bran reined in his impulse to laugh. His children, all born and raised in different eras, were as different from each other as the points on a compass rose. What Samuel and Charles could take with a snort or stoic dry humor, was a personal affront to Mercy. And what Mercy found uproariously funny left Samuel and Charles clutching their metaphysical pearls in horror. It was interesting, to say the least.

“You said all the wolves are yours.”

Bran nodded.

“The Slayer’s people say that this wolf belongs to them.”

“He’s a person,” the pretty young slayer said from the bed, “not a thing.”

Bran and Mercy looked at her. Head still pillowed on her arms, the boy’s hand still tangled in her hair, she was now looking at them. “You’re awake,” came from Mercy. Bran contented himself with a half-smile.

They pretty blond slayer wasn’t to be distracted, however. “Oz doesn’t belong to us. And if he does it’s because we belong to him, too.” Then the girl rubbed her nose against her hands and appeared to go back to sleep.

Mercy slapped both hands over her mouth, but couldn’t hide the way her shoulders were shaking.

“You find this amusing,” Bran said.

She almost stumbled backwards out of the room in her haste to get away from him. A burst of laughter coming from the direction of the nurses’ desk followed a moment later. When he looked back into the room, the pretty blond slayer was looking at him again.

“Kids,” she said.

“You have?” he asked. That slayers didn’t usually live long enough to have children stood unspoken between them.

“Kid sister. Almost the same, but totally not. Or so I hear.” 

She lifted Oz's hand from her head then pushed herself up from the edge of the boy's bed. She pressed the hand she held against her cheek before setting it gently on the duvet covering him. Sitting up, she said, "There have been slayers with kids in the past. Not too many, though."

"That couldn't have end well," Bran said as he shifted fully into the room. 

"Not many things end well in the life of a slayer," she said darkly. Then, with a grin that strongly reminded Bran of Mercy, she said, "On the other hand, I wouldn't want to get on the bad side of a pregnant slayer, would you?"

"Trying to tell me something, Slayer?"

Her hazel green eyes widened. "The kid sister is enough, thanks! Plus, if I was gonna tell anyone anything involving mood swings, food cravings and 3 am feedings--" Brow furrowed, she cut herself off. "Actually, that's a disturbingly accurate description of my life right now. Hunh."

Bran gave the slayer a broad, toothsome smile, hands helpfully jammed into his pockets. 

"Anyway, I'd tell Oz first if we were going to be adding a kid to our already messed up lives."

"Of course you would, Buffy"

The Slayer, _the_ Slayer, grinned at him. "How'd you figure it out?"

"Something wasn't quite right when you gave us your name yesterday afternoon."

"Really?"

Hands still in his pockets, Bran shrugged. "It tasted a bit like a lie, but not."

"Really?" Buffy's eyes widened again. "Well that just sucks. Oz always said using Anne was safe. It's my middle name," she added conversationally. 

"With younger wolves, I'm sure it is, but Charles and I are a little older."

"Oh," she began in the same conversational tone, "I wouldn't call being the oldest living werewolf in North America, and quite possibly the world, 'a little older'. Marrok."

The grin she gave him reminded him so strongly of Mercy, he would have thought his youngest had revealed his identity if he hadn't known her better. It was pure mischievous glee. 

Bran pulled his hands out of his pocket and held his hands up as if in surrender. "And how did you figure it out, Slayer?"

Pouting, she said, "Can we leave off with the official titles that strike fear into the hearts of itty-bitties and big bads alike? I'm not here on official business – I'm here on worried girlfriend business."

"Should you be telling me this?" Bran asked, eyebrows drifting towards his hairline.

"Probably not. But we've got short people solidarity!"

Surprised laughter burst from Bran. He got himself under control as quickly as he'd lost it, though. "Short people solidarity?"

"Sure! I mean, yeah, you're taller than _me_ , but you're still pretty short for a guy, surrounded by people who are younger and yet genetically able to tower over you. Did I mention that my kid sister doubles as a telephone phone pole? And that she’s been lording that fact over me since she turned fourteen? And that I was legally an adult by then?"

It took more effort than Bran would ever admit to a virtual stranger to maintain his neutral expression. 

"Plus, you wanted to know how I figured out who you are when Mr. Tall-And-Glowering would have been the more logical guess?” 

Pointing first at herself, then at Oz in the bed, Buffy said, “As you can see, I have lots of experience with concentrated awesomeness. If I didn’t already know that the Marrok was male, I might have started with the kid. Marcia? Marissa? Merry?”

Tempting though it was to correct her, Bran kept his peace. It didn’t seem to bother the Slayer: “Anyway, short people solidarity. We understand each other in a way that averages and talls are totally clueless about.”

“Totally clueless?”

“Oh, for sure." Buffy held up a finger. "The joys and agonies of people thinking you're younger than you are." Another finger went up. "Crowds! On the one hand you can slip through them with stealthiest of ease, but on the other hand you're probably doing the stealth-slip because you can't see the band." A third finger went up. "At a sale, they still have your size, but you might have to fight some whiny teeny-bopper for it because you're probably shopping in their department." A fourth finger went up.

"How many of these do you have?" Bran asked.

Buffy shrugged. "A couple handfuls. Short people have short friends, because--"

"Short people solidarity," Bran guessed.

Buffy nodded solemnly. "We understand each other. That and slayers tend to come in concentrate. We've had discussions."

"And you have Very Definite feelings about 'the joys and agonies' of being short."

Buffy smiled. "See! You, like, _totally_ got it."

"I wasn't always short." Bran knew he was probably poking at her bright shiny bubble.

"And I wasn't always the Slayer," she said in a tone that burst the bubble entirely. 

"Look, Bran, I didn't come here to start a war. I didn't come to renegotiate the dusty old agreement you made with the old Watchers Council back before my grandma was a glimmer in my great-grandma's eye. Although," she sighed, "I guess now that they're gone we really should. But not today. I'm not here for supernatural politics. 

"I'm here because my musician boyfriend decided to jump-start our vacay in the middle of nowhere – which, if that's not a sign of love, I don't know what is?"

Amused, Bran said, "Oz going on vacation before you is a sign of his love?"

Buffy scoffed. "No, that's a sign of how crazy in love I am, that I’m willing to vacay in the middle of nowhere. Total California girl here. Gimme a beach, gimme waves, gimme hiking in the hills or, better yet, gimme an AmEx black card and the hallowed sidewalks of Rodeo Drive. But dirt? And trees? In the middle of Winter? No offense to your mountain community – which, I admit, is kinda gorgeous – but soooo not my cup of tea.” She deflated on a sigh. “Oz wanted to get away, though. Just me and him. And what’s better than that, right?” With an annoyed uptick of her lips, she added, “I didn’t expect nature to have an opinion.”

“She can have Very Definite feelings about those in her domain.”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not teasing me, are you?”

Eyes open as wide and innocently as any ‘Who me?’ expression Mercy had ever given him, Bran said, “Why? Do I seem like the teasing sort?”

“Yes.” 

Buffy reached for Oz’s hand where it was lying on top of the duvet. She was looking at their linked fingers instead of Bran when she said, “I know that once he’s strong enough to change he’ll heal lickity-split. Can we hold off on the who-belongs-to-who discussion until after my alone time with my main squeeze? Especially since we might be spending it here or a containment room? This is like the second quietest week in the entire slayer calendar. We won’t be this free again until after the Spring Apocalypse.” 

Frowning, Bran said, “You mean Spring Equinox.” 

Buffy snorted, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge Bran’s words. “Then everyone’s seriously wiped, until they’re not anymore, but _then_ everyone’s all ‘Let’s Celebrate’. Which is _fine_! But getting in uninterrupted smoochie time with your guy gets super awkward when you’re surrounded by exes and former crushes and a bunch of giggly hey-we’re-still-alive girls who’ve gotta get their post-apocalyptical jollies somehow but are too young to drink.”

She turned from Oz to look at Bran. “Know what I mean?”

“I’m actually afraid I do.”

“So you’ll give us a temporary reprieve?”

Bran eyed her and the young man lying unconscious in the infirmary bed. “I need to think this over,” he said, preparing to leave. 

Folding himself back into his more youthful persona was almost too easy. Bran realized he’d never fully left the persona’s laid-back embrace. Buffy’s attitude had helped. Except for meeting his eyes at will, she’d maintained a non-threatening position in her seat by the boy’s bed. Her tone had been conversational. Her posture never stronger than what he would expect from a self-assured young woman. Sometimes she had been worried, sometimes she’d been flippant, but she hadn’t been aggressive. The press of her power was no heavier now that he had outed her than it had been when Charles had opened the door to the unnamed slayer on their doorstep. 

Bran was almost willing to believe that his wolf had recognized a rare equal in this young woman, the longest lived slayer in the history of the world. If not for that last. If that was all the power she had, then she might have been clever enough to survive this long, but that wouldn’t make her an equal in the eyes of his very dominant wolf. And if, as he suspected, she was masking her ability, that should be putting his wolf on alert.

“I should discuss it with my second first,” he added.

“Sure,” Buffy said with a shrug and nod. “If the tables were turned, I’d probably discuss it with the gang first, too.”

Bran made to turn on his heel and leave when Buffy’s voice stopped him. “One thing, and I swear this isn’t a threat, but if I don’t check in within twelve hours the cavalry is going to come riding in on their trans-dimensional portals. Which is not a thing I want to happen if all you need is time!” Buffy added quickly. “I’m just saying, keep me in the loop, ‘kay? I can deal with the guys.”

“Of course. Short people solidarity.”

Buffy grinned and Bran felt like grinning with her. Instead he nodded at her heartfelt thank you, before finally leaving the room and, ultimately, the infirmary building.

_Samuel. Charles. Meet me at home. We have things to discuss._

 

Fin[ite]


End file.
